


The Nightmare of Being

by journeytogallifrey



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: (even darker than normal), Ableist Language, Child Abuse, Coma, Frottage, Hitting with a Belt, I just didn't find a good place to mention it, Kissing, Legilimency, Luna totally ships it, M/M, Nightmares, Poison, Post-Canon, Post-War, Remus and Sirius are alive, Verbal Abuse, Whipping, also Severus, also Wolfstar is canon to this universe, because I say so, dark!Lucius, well not post-Epilogue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-15
Updated: 2014-11-15
Packaged: 2018-02-25 10:47:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2618984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/journeytogallifrey/pseuds/journeytogallifrey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When someone slips Draco a potion that puts him in a coma where he experiences his worst fear put on loop, Harry must use Legilimency to get inside his mind and pull him out again. But first he must discover Draco's worst fear... and it's something much darker and more relatable to Harry than he ever would have thought. What will this mean for their budding post-war friendship? Will Lucius ever get what he deserves? And will Harry manage to convince Draco he's dreaming in the week before the potion will kill him once and for all?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Nightmare of Being

Hermione was pale when she showed up in Harry’s fireplace, the wild curls of her hair surrounded by flame.

“McGonagall needs you in the infirmary,” she said, and Harry blinked at her.

“Why?”

“Oh, please just come!”

And then she was gone.

There was nothing for it; Harry set down his quill and headed out of his Hogwarts office, down and up the various flights of stairs that were necessary to get to the infirmary. There he found a small group of people gathered around someone in one of the beds.

McGonagall looked up first, and then Hermione; Luna just continued to stare downwards.

“Mr. Potter,” said McGonagall with a nod. “Thank you for coming on such short notice, and at such a late hour.”

“What’s going on?” he asked, approaching the hospital bed. It was only now that he could catch sight of who it was:

Draco Malfoy.

The Slytherin boy (but no, he was a young man now, just like Harry) lay pale and unmoving in the bed, his eyes closed, his hands arranged neatly at his sides.

“Draco Malfoy,” said McGonagall, “has been poisoned.”

 

“How is that possible?” Harry asked when his shock died down.

Draco, Harry remembered from their schooldays, had always worn a ring that would detect almost any poison, and he made a point of dipping it into anything he drank before drinking it. It was a habit of most Slytherins and even some of the Ravenclaw purebloods, a holdover from the days of rampant assassinations and power grabs. But then…

Harry’s eyes closed.

On a particularly bad day, Harry had asked him what the ring was for, and once Draco had (rather imperiously) explained, Ron had teased him endlessly about it. Not the sort of teasing Harry and Ron did to each other, but teasing with bite – the same sort of thing Sirius had always done to Severus Snape. Eventually Draco had slunk out of the room with a high-handed comment and barely a blush on his cheeks, but now… Harry looked back and realized he hadn’t seen him with the ring since.

“What sort of poison?” he continued, glancing between their solemn faces in the hope that someone would have an answer.

“Ms. Granger has managed to identify it – with Remus and Severus still off in Mongolia, she is our resident Potions expert,” McGonagall explained. “It’s a nasty little concoction. It takes flakes of Boggart essence and feeds off of your worst fear, placing you into a coma of endless nightmares.”

“So… there’s a cure, right?” Harry asked. “Now that we know what it is, we know the cure?” He had never been on the best of terms with Draco, but that didn’t mean he would wish a _coma of endless nightmares_ on him.

McGonagall sighed. “Unfortunately… there is no cure known at present.”

“It’s just a coma! Can’t we use Legilimency or something to go in and get him out?”

“That would be far too dangerous, Mr. Potter,” said McGonagall sternly. “The person entering his mind would have a good chance of being sucked into the nightmare as well. No one would volunteer for such a thing.”

“I would.”

The words were out of his mouth before he had a chance to think about them, and Hermione shot him a long-suffering look.

“Harry, _really_ —”

“If anyone could, it would be Harry.” When Luna finally spoke, it was with an extra dose of that dreamy quality to her voice. She didn’t look up at them. “It _is_ Draco, after all.”

No one really knew what to say to that. McGonagall moved on to address him directly.

“Foolishness,” she said. “Utter foolishness. It may not be my place to forbid such a thing, but I must advise highly against it—”

“I agree,” said Hermione, clasping her hands together and turning to Harry. “Harry, you really mustn’t, you could get stuck along with him—”

“I’ll think about it,” Harry told them, exasperated. “But if this is the only way we can think of, I don’t see why we can’t give it a shot! It’s not exactly _Voldemort_ we’re dealing with here, he deserves a chance—”

“You deserve a chance too!”

“They both do,” said Luna. Everyone present looked at her as if they had forgotten she was there. “This _is_ their chance. You’ll see.” She smiled, looking oddly self-satisfied, before returning to stroking one of Draco’s hands.

Harry waited a moment to see if she was going to continue, and when she didn’t, he said, “I’ll give you a day to think of anything better, but if you can’t, I’m going in. No questions asked.”

And although Hermione looked distinctly displeased, no one argued.

 

“You’re going to want to know what you’re getting into,” said Hermione a day later. “That means we’re going to have to figure out Malfoy’s worst fear. You wouldn’t happen to know that, would you?”

“No idea,” Harry said with a shrug. “Look, he went up against the Boggart third year, he must’ve, Remus would know –”

“But he’s still out on Order business, we won’t be able to reach him in time. The coma will start to disintegrate within the week. We won’t have any longer or else Malfoy…”

The implications struck Harry somewhere deep. “Dies. You’re saying he’ll die.”

“Not necessarily. But… probably, yes. Anyway, we can do a light Legilimency to dig for that one memory from third year, preferably without touching the nightmares. Do you want me to do it?”

Harry considered. Ever since Snape’s near-death the year before, he’d been working hard on his Legilimency. It didn’t help that the entire Wizarding World was trying to get into his mind. But he still found Occlumency almost insurmountably difficult. Still, while he was practically useless as an Occlumens, he had gained enough skill as a Legilimens to do rudimentary memory work. “I’d rather, if you think I can pull it off.”

She gave him a gentle smile. “Harry, you’re a pitiful Occlumens, but that might actually be helpful in this situation. Your brain will be less closed-off because – well, you literally _can’t_ close it off. So you might be able to get into Malfoy’s mind more easily. Just so long as you think you’re ready.”

“I’m ready,” he said determinedly… and for a moment, he almost even believed it.

 

“I can’t _believe_ you’re doing this, mate,” said Ron from where they stood at Draco’s bedside.

Hermione spoke up from between him and Harry. “He has got a chance, you know, he’s always been good with Imperius and he can do Dementors now and he knows some Legilimency…”

“But for _Malfoy?_ ”

“He’s not all bad, you know,” said Harry quickly, and then just as quickly wondered why he was defending Draco Malfoy. Still, it was true. “He’s been really helpful, since the war and everything.”

“Yeah, I think he actually feels bad about what happened,” Hermione interjected, and Ron threw them a doubtful look.

“My _stomach_ feels bad about the entire box of Sugar Quills I just ate, doesn’t mean I won’t do the same exact thing next time I go to Hogsmeade…”

“Stomachs aside,” said Harry loudly, “I’ve got to do this soon, before I lose my nerve. Are you with me?”

“Of course,” said Hermione.

“I guess so…” Ron trailed off uncomfortably and stared at the ground. He hadn’t seemed to look directly at Draco since entering the room.

“All right, then.” Harry took a deep breath, held up his wand, and stared at Draco’s opened eyes. “One… two… three… _legilimens!_ ”

Instantly Harry’s eyes snapped shut and he was plunged into an unfamiliar landscape.

He could feel something dark pulsing out in front of him, something huge and unknowable, and instinctively he steered away from it before he even realized what it was: the nightmare in which Draco was currently trapped. Instead he headed away, towards what he thought might be memories of past years.

It was strange, performing the spell on someone comatose. Ordinarily, what the casting wizard saw depended on what the affected wizard was thinking about, and though the casting wizard could somewhat direct the thoughts, both wizards were thinking the same thing at the same time. But not anymore. Without Draco there to guard his thoughts, Harry was free to roam around through years and years of memories.

_Third year,_ he thought, and felt a swooping sensation in his stomach as if he were moving. And then, _Remus Lupin’s class._

There it was: the very first memory associated with that class, and immediately Harry knew he was looking at the right thing. There was so much fear and shame pulsing off of it. Exactly what a proud young Slytherin boy would feel at his worst fear being revealed in front of his entire class.

Harry dove into the memory.

 

He was standing at the door to the classroom, and in front of him a line of Slytherins stood by an old wardrobe.

“All right, who’s next? No one? How about you, Theodore?” said Remus encouragingly, his smile not faltering at the chilly reception he was receiving.

Harry spotted Draco standing amidst the crowd, saying something proud and mocking to Crabbe and Goyle. He began to creep closer in order to hear, then wondered why he was creeping – no one could tell he was there. So he walked up quite confidently in time to catch the tail end of Draco’s speech:

“…pitiful Mudblood,” Draco was saying. “My father would _never_ allow such a teacher in a place like this.” Harry rolled his eyes. Given the work he had been doing with Draco since the war, he could sense the underlying fear behind Draco’s words, but Crabbe and Goyle evidently could not. They laughed dumbly.

But there was a sort of wild look in Draco’s eyes. He was evidently very, very unenthused about approaching what was in that wardrobe.

At the front of the class, Nott was facing down a giant snake by making it tie itself into, well, knots. It stared up helplessly at him from the floor while writhing ineffectually.

As Nott moved to make way for the next boy, Pansy Parkinson sneered at him. “Slytherin, and you’re afraid of snakes? Come on, Nott.”

“Oi, you didn’t seem this brave facing down that silly little mutt!”

“At least dogs are bigger than snakes,” someone else chimed in. “My sister got mauled by one once.”

“Dogs’re fine if you raise ’em right.”

“What are you, Gryffindor?”

Harry watched with interest. He had never really been privy to Slytherin infighting before – generally, their efforts had been focused against him and his friends when they were around.

Remus seemed to take it all in stride, shoving the Boggart back into the wardrobe and shutting it as he surveyed the class. “Next up… Draco, perhaps?”

Draco jerked his chin up. “Oh, give me a break. This whole thing is absolutely ridiculous.”

Remus smiled gently. “Riddikulus it is. Still, you’ll need to learn the spell if you’re going to make it through this class.”

Arms crossed, Draco retorted, “No, I’m not doing it. There’s no chance I’ll ever need this in the real world, you’re just doing this to humiliate us because we’re Slytherin –”

“Actually,” Remus said mildly, “I’m teaching this curriculum to all of my students.”

“Believe me, Lupin, my father will hear about this! He’ll tell you I’m excused –”

“Draco,” Remus interrupted. And then, with just a hint of steel behind his words, “Would you like to be sent to the Headmaster’s office?”

Draco flinched, perhaps remembering their time in the Forbidden Forest. “All right, all right,” he said, glaring at Remus as he passed by. “Easy enough, even if it’s completely foolish –”

Remus went up to the wardrobe and put his hand on the handle, but stopped at the last moment and looked closely at Draco.

“Draco,” he said very quietly, “do you know what form the Boggart will take for you?”

“No idea,” Draco answered, but his voice was shaking.

Remus studied him for a long moment, then drew the door to the wardrobe open and –

Lucius Malfoy stepped out.

“ _Riddikulus!_ ” screamed Draco, and Lucius stood there in a ball gown, something Harry had only seen in old movies and on purebloods at the Yule Ball. The Boggart looked down at itself in shock and made a _pop_ ping noise, and Draco stepped aside to let the student behind him take over.

Then he went back to his spot beside Crabbe and Goyle, glaring around himself as if daring anyone to speak. The whole room was completely silent. Remus looked stricken.

And then…

“ _Riddikulus!_ ” shouted the next girl in line, and chatter resumed among the students.

And the memory dissolved around him…

 

Harry opened his eyes with a start and saw Hermione and Ron gazing at him with concern.

“You all right?” asked Ron. “You were in there a long time…”

“Did you find what we were looking for?”

Harry nodded numbly.

“So what is it?” Ron asked eagerly. “What makes old Malfoy wet his pants?”

Harry shook his head.

“Oh, come on, you can tell us,” Ron pried, but Harry couldn’t. It was simply… too private.

“I need to go think about what to do,” said Harry, and he walked out of the infirmary with his legs shaking.

 

_Stupid boy._

The voices came out of the darkness, along with the sound of a belt cracking, over and over.

_Idiot boy. She should’ve never had you, my sister… Should’ve never had such a whelp as you…_

_Crack. Crack._

_Go on, then, pick it up and eat it, that’s all the dinner you’ll have tonight._

_Stupid boy._

_Idiot boy._

_Snap. Crack._

 

Harry woke up in a cold sweat and slowly took stock of where he was.

He was in his room at Hogwarts, in the beautiful four-poster bed that had come with the position of temporary Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher while Remus was away. The curse had lifted from the job, evidently, and Harry was glad to take it over – in his element teaching the young students what had always been his passion.

But the nightmares still plagued him at night. And for the first time, he found himself wondering… did Draco have nightmares too?

He traced his hand over the small of his back, as if he would still be able to feel the welts there. He couldn’t. Non-magical scars were easy enough to heal, and anyway, the Dursleys had always been careful not to go too far. Merlin forbid the neighbors thought they were child abusers. Especially when all they were doing was disciplining the boy who had always been a burden…

Harry shook his head to chase the thoughts away. It was clear, now more than ever, that he was going to have to go into Draco’s head. Maybe there was common ground that could help him lift Draco from his nightmares. Maybe there was some small chance of success, after all.

 

He went in the very next day.

McGonagall was there, of course, clucking with disapproval, along with Ron and Hermione and Draco lying pale in the hospital bed.

“I’m still trying to work out who poisoned him in the first place,” said Hermione, but the fact was that they might never know. There were simply too many potential culprits. Nearly everyone in the Wizarding World had it out for those who had been tied to the Death Eaters, and Draco was especially in the spotlight due to his special rivalry with their precious Boy Who Lived.

“If you find out, give them a nice kick in the rear for me,” Harry said grimly.

Ron snorted. “If you find out, give them a medal.”

“ _Ron._ ” Hermione gave her fiancé a warning look.

“All right, I might be in there for a while, so you might have to put me in a bed or something.”

“I thought you needed eye contact for Legilimency?” said Ron.

Harry shrugged. “So did I. You do at first. But apparently when one person’s in a coma, you don’t have to maintain it like you normally do.”

“I believe it has something to do with the subconscious properties of –”

“Oh, can it, ’Mione,” said Ron, rather unkindly. “Harry’s got work to do, haven’t you, Harry?”

“Yeah.” Harry scratched at his head nervously. “Yeah, I guess I do.”

So he lifted open Draco’s eyelids and stared into their icy depths. Finally he whispered, “ _Legilimens_ ,” and there he was again in that dark landscape.

Except this time, he would have to go _towards_ the pulsing terror of the dark.

 

Harry landed in a room.

He was behind Draco, in the doorway, and Lucius Malfoy was standing behind his desk across the way. Draco was kneeling in front of the desk on the other side.

“I’m sorry, Father.”

“You allowed yourself to be struck in the face by a _Mudblood,_ Draco. Do you understand what that means?”

“Yes, Father, I’m sorry, Father…”

“She has dirtied you, boy. She has sullied you and our family name. If anyone were to find out about this…”

“Only Crabbe and Goyle know, honest!”

“Those simpletons may make good followers, but you should never share with them something like this! You already divulge much too much of your plans to them, boy, when they should simply be your dumb servants...”

Draco said something unintelligible.

“What was that, boy?”

“I said, they’re my _friends!_ ” Draco’s face snapped up to him with something that Harry, creeping up enough to see him in profile, read as defiance.

“You’re a Slytherin! You don’t _get_ ‘friends’!” Lucius’s face was a mask of fury. “For defying me, and for the entirely preventable slight to our family name, you know what I must do.”

Instantly Draco looked shaken and terrified. “No, Father, please, Father…”

“Evidently, boy, being struck is the only way you will learn. Remove your robe.”

Draco removed his robe, leaving himself bare-chested, wearing only trousers. Harry was surprised by how muscular he was – not the pale, skin-and-bones figure he had been during the year in which the incident with Hermione had actually occurred. This was a modern-day Draco living the events of the past all over again.

Harry sucked in a breath as Lucius went over to the closet and returned with a whip.

“Stay on your knees,” said Lucius coldly. Draco was whimpering, almost sobbing.

“No, Father, please, I’ll do anything…”

“You have already done enough. Now count.”

Lucius raised the whip and Harry could not stop himself from shouting, “No!”

Lucius did not react, but Draco turned, his expression one of utter confusion. “ _Potter…?_ ”

The whip came down.

Draco screamed and a long welt appeared on his back.

“I said count, boy!”

“O-One!” said Draco, cowering.

“Stop!” Harry screamed, and Draco locked eyes with him, grabbing his robe up from the ground to cover his chest.

“No, Potter, you can’t be here, you can’t see this –”

Lucius, who evidently couldn’t see Harry, brought the whip down again, and Draco screamed and writhed.

“Not – not _you_ ,” Draco added, his voice breaking so thoroughly that Harry’s heart broke along with it.

“Count,” said Lucius, “or it shall be double.”

“Two,” Draco spat up at his father, and then to Harry, angrily: “ _Leave._ ”

“Draco, this isn’t real,” said Harry, not even registering that he had called him by his first name out loud. “You have to come with me, you have to come with me right now…”

Draco let out a cry of agony and then recovered almost impossibly quickly to say, “Th-Three.”

“Draco, someone slipped you a potion! This isn’t real, you’re in a coma –”

The whip began to come down again –

“ _No!_ ” screamed Harry, and something inside him _pushed_ like it hadn’t since the first time the Dursleys beat him and he overturned a bookshelf with accidental magic –

Lucius was thrown across the room and the whip went flying out of his hand.

Draco looked up in shock.

“How did you…”

Harry woke up.

 

“It’s always easier to do that sort of thing from within a dream state,” said Hermione over breakfast.

Harry had explained to them how he had moved Lucius within the coma, although he didn’t mention the circumstances surrounding it. It was still too private – and anyway, if just _thinking_ about it made his blood boil, speaking about it would be nearly impossible.

“You could probably do a number of interesting things in there,” she continued. “Create and modify objects, imagine new people, make whole new rooms…”

“But I don’t want to do any of that stuff,” he said. “I want to get Draco _out_.”

“For that,” said Hermione, “you’re going to have to convince him he’s inside of a dream.”

“Or you could just give up on the git,” Ron mumbled.

Harry stared at him rather coldly. “That’s not an option.”

“Once he believes you that he’s dreaming – once he realizes the nightmare state – he should be able to follow the spell trial of your Legilimency out of his own mind and wake up from the coma. But he has to fully believe it first.”

“Shouldn’t be too difficult,” said Harry cheerfully, taking a sip of his orange juice. “How stubborn can a Malfoy be?”

 

“That’s ridiculous.”

Draco was sitting at the end of the dinner table at Malfoy Manor, staring down his nose at Harry.

Harry was getting exasperated.

“ _You’re_ being ridiculous,” he retorted. “Come on, do you remember getting here? Don’t you remember collapsing at dinner? Have you _seen_ anyone besides your father in the last three days?”

“You,” said Draco with a shrug. “At least, until I manage to find a house elf to kick you out. I still don’t understand how you got in here in the first place.”

“It’s _because you’re dreaming!_ ” Harry burst out. “Somebody slipped you a potion that makes you live out your worst nightmare –”

Draco scoffed. “If this is supposed to be my worst nightmare, what am I doing at home, in the lap of luxury?”

“Don’t make me say it,” said Harry through gritted teeth.

“Say what?”

“I _saw_ you yesterday, Malfoy! I saw what he did to you!”

Draco did not flinch visibly, but his eyes did, somehow. “Get out.”

“But –”

“I said… get… _out!_ ”

Harry had the distinct impression of being kicked out of someone’s mind by accidental Occlumency. He woke up.

 

“I think you’re barking up the wrong tree, mate,” said Ron.

“Oh, it’s the right tree,” said Luna as she stirred her mashed potatoes with a knife.

“Right tree, wrong forest,” said Harry bitterly.

Hermione put her hand over his. “Just give it time.”

 

The next time he saw Draco, the blond boy was lying on the cold stone floor with his back bleeding. Lucius was nowhere in sight.

As Harry creaked the door open, Draco whimpered. “I’ll be good, Father, I promise…”

“I’m not him,” said Harry gently, and knelt down beside Draco.

“Go away,” said Draco miserably. “I don’t want you here.”

Harry looked over Draco and thought back to when he’d been in pain, or hungry, or tired, or alone, and what he had wanted more than anything at Privet Drive.

_Make whole new rooms,_ Hermione had said, and Harry closed his eyes and concentrated hard.

When he opened his eyes, he found himself in a Slytherin dorm. Draco looked up, too, as he noticed the floor beneath him turn to a soft, plush, green-and-silver carpet.

“Come on,” said Harry. “We’ve got to get you on the bed.”

Harry put one arm under Draco’s and, ignoring the protests, lifted him onto the bed and turned him so that he was lying on his stomach.

“You don’t need to do this,” Draco mumbled into the pillows.

“Yes, I do,” Harry answered calmly, and reached into the top drawer of the bedside table for what he knew would be there – bandages and disinfectant.

He looked down at Draco for a long moment, hating what he was about to have to do.

“This is going to hurt,” Harry said, “a lot. Just… just please don’t hate me for it, okay? I have to do it.”

There was the question of whether disinfectant was _necessary_ , within a dream, but Harry could still see the marks from Draco’s previous beating under the current ones, and he figured an infection would last about as long as the coma, however long that might be. So he poured the slightest bit of disinfectant onto the wounds.

“I’m sorry!” said Harry as Draco groaned.

“Oh, you utter _prat_ ,” he said, but the complaint lacked teeth. Draco was too out of it for his normal ire.

Gently, Harry wrapped the bandages around Draco’s midsection, having to force Draco to rise slightly in order to get them around his front. But soon enough Draco was entirely swathed and disinfected.

Only then did Draco open one eye and stare at Harry. “Why are you being so nice to me?” he asked.

Harry thought for a long moment. “Because it’s the right thing to do,” he said at last.

“Bloody Gryffindors,” said Draco next, but Harry could have sworn he was smiling.

 

The next day Harry found Draco in the same Slytherin dorm room, huddled into one corner as someone or something pounded on the door that led outside.

“He’s been doing that all day,” said Draco tiredly as he watched Harry pop into existence.

“And you don’t think it’s weird that your father’s trying to get into the Slytherin dorm room you haven’t lived in for more than a year?”

Draco shrugged. “I barricaded myself in. I couldn’t… I couldn’t.”

“That’s all right,” said Harry soothingly, and Draco glared.

“Don’t… do that.”

“Do what?”

“Be all… nice. And stuff.”

Harry frowned. “Am I supposed to be… not nice?”

“Argh!” Draco pulled on his own hair with a frustrated noise. When he let go in stood up at amusing angles. “Look, I don’t know what’s happening anymore.”

“That’s okay,” said Harry, and went over to sit beside him. It seemed only natural to put an arm around him. “Okay?” he asked.

“Okay,” said Draco, and they stayed like that until Harry woke again.

 

Harry went into Draco’s real-life room to find some sort of talisman, something he could conjure up in the coma to remind him of the real world. But that wasn’t what he found.

Instead, he found hatemail. Piles and piles of hatemail. An endless amount of hatemail, overflowing Draco’s desk and spilling onto the floor.

He picked one up and immediately the words jumped off the page at him.

_You pureblood Malfoy bastard,_ it said. _Bloody traitor to everything that’s good in this world. You wouldn’t know love or kindness if they punched you in your smug little rat face. Traitor to the Boy-Who-Lived. Traitor to all of wizarding kind, you bloody Snake. You should be in Azkaban with the rest of them._

Harry dropped it as if it had burned him, hands shaking. A good half of the letters were spent Howlers. _I’m sorry, Draco,_ he thought. _I didn’t know…_

He went to Hermione immediately and told her about the letters. “Maybe the person who poisoned him is in there!”

“Any one of those people could have done it, Harry,” she said doubtfully. “It could take ages to go through them all…”

“So let’s get started!”

She smiled sadly. “Oh, Harry. All right. But don’t be surprised if we don’t find anything.”

 

The next time Harry saw Draco, the pounding on the door had gotten louder. Draco was lying face-down on the bed with a pillow over his head.

Harry immediately went over to lie next to him (there was just barely room) and place an arm over his back, holding him, careful to avoid the wounds. “It’s going to be okay,” he told him.

Draco was very tired when he looked up to meet Harry’s eyes. “I don’t know anymore,” he said. “I just don’t know.”

 

Lucius finally came to visit his son four days after the affliction had first struck.

Harry had to excuse himself from the room, he was shaking with fury. But he could not strike out against the patriarch of the Malfoy line. Not without proof.

He pressed an ear to the infirmary door and listened as Lucius spoke to McGonagall:

“It’s refreshing to have a break from the public’s hatred,” he confided. “The moment the news broke, I was flooded with sympathy. Of course, I would trade it all to have my son back.”

_I’ll bet,_ thought Harry, and he retired to his room for a night of nightmares of his own.

 

“Why me?”

Draco looked up at Harry’s question, confusion filling his eyes. “What do you mean?”

“You said, ‘not _you_.’ Like I was the worst one to see it. I mean, I know we haven’t always been… friends… but, I can’t be the _worst_ one. I mean, _Ron_ would be the worst one.”

That earned him a smile, though it soon faded. “Maybe I’ll tell you one day. You just wish.”

_There’s the old Malfoy_ , Harry thought with a sigh. “Draco, why can’t you just follow me out?”

“Follow you where? How? Just walk up into the ceiling and back into the ‘real world’? This is already the real world.”

Hermione was right – Draco would only be able to see the way out once he truly believed.

Draco was watching him closely.

“You’re not the worst one to see it, like that.”

Harry felt a confused expression of his own take hold.

“I mean, I know you wouldn’t…” Draco hesitated. It seemed to be costing him dearly to say this. “I know you wouldn’t tease me about it, I guess. Or, I didn’t know, then, but I know now…. I just…” He looked at Harry with a sort of lopsided bittersweet half-smile. “I’d rather you think well of me, if that makes sense.”

“The Dursleys beat me,” said Harry unexpectedly.

They stared at each other for a moment, equally shocked.

“I mean... not… not as bad as…” He made a vague gesture at Draco’s back. “But, with a belt. Or, Uncle Vernon did. Aunt Petunia just sort of watched and wouldn’t let me have food. Sometimes she slapped me. Didn’t much care if her nails got in the way.” Harry looked down. “So… there. If I were to think poorly of you… you can think poorly of me.”

“I would never think poorly of you,” said Draco, almost breathlessly, and as Harry became aware of how close they were all of a sudden, Draco kissed him.

Harry’s mind reeled. Draco’s lips were cool on his own, soft and pliant, and when Harry didn’t pull away the blond boy placed his arms around him and pulled him deeper. Harry’s stomach felt as if it were lifting off the planet.

But then Draco seemed to notice he wasn’t responding and pushed him back, wiping at his own mouth. “Just go!”

“But –”

“ _Please_. I didn’t mean to… you can go.”

And before he could respond, the familiar tide of Occlumency carried him away.

 

Harry had never thought about kissing Draco before, but now it was all he could think about.

What was it that had him so preoccupied? It hadn’t been anything special, as far as kisses went – closed-mouthed, much more chaste than all the kisses he had shared with Ginny before their break-up – but he couldn’t get it out of his head.

All of a sudden everything clicked together, and he _wanted_ Draco, so badly it hurt. He wanted to go back into the coma immediately, but McGonagall forced him to go get some rest. But he didn’t sleep. He just stared up at the red canopy of his bed and thought.

How had he not thought of this before? Draco, the beautiful blond boy with the porcelain skin and delicate features, who hid his vulnerabilities with snark and who was learning not to use slurs or hurt people too deeply. The clever young man who had gotten Harry out of plenty of scrapes since the war, and who had managed not to kill Ron despite all the digs between them. They fit together so well and suddenly Harry missed that warmth at his side, missed that familiar rivalry that had always been so easy.

On the morning of the seventh day he rose quickly and went to the infirmary alone. Draco’s condition was deteriorating.

Harry had to get back in there and convince him to follow him into the real world. Or else he would be lost forever.

 

“You came back,” said Draco dully from where he was seated on the bed.

“Of course I did, you sod,” said Harry, and he crossed the room in a few long strides and knelt on the bed before Draco, taking him into his arms. Without another word he pressed their lips together.

Draco made a noise of surprise and then melted into the kiss.

Soon he pulled back to say, “Seriously?”

“What can I say, I’m full of surprises,” said Harry, deadpan, and then: “Look, you caught me off guard, but it was… you know. It was nice.”

“ _Nice?_ Oh, excellent, Potter, I’ll just write the presses, then, Malfoy kisses Boy-Who-Deems-It- _Nice_ –”

“Shut up,” said Harry, and kissed him again.

The pounding on the door grew louder.

“I can’t do this much longer,” said Draco, looking even paler than usual.

“Shh,” said Harry. “I’ve got you.”

“That’s not very comforting from the bloke who’s lost his grip and thinks I’m in a _coma_ –”

“I’ve got you,” said Harry, and stole another kiss, because they did feel nice.

And then Draco deepened the kiss and opened his mouth and Harry was in a whole new world of warm wet heat and he felt like he might be about to faint.

Draco picked up on this fact. “Don’t keel over there, Potter,” he said, but sounded rather out of breath himself.

“I’ve never –”

“I know,” said Draco. Because there had only been Ginny, never any boys, and this was strange in a way that was mostly good but still partially just strange.

Draco kissed him and Harry felt the arousal travelling downwards, until he was grinding helplessly against the bedframe, and then Draco helped him out by offering him a knee and Harry slid his own knee into place and suddenly everything made so much _sense_ that Harry wanted to cry.

It built to a crescendo and then Harry was lost, floating away as his muscles tensed and spasmed, and soon enough Draco followed, and then they were very still, clinging to each other and sweating and breathing in and out.

The pounding on the door had stopped.

Draco was very pale.

“You had a week,” Harry told him, “and this is the last day.”

“I still think you’re mad,” said Draco.

_I’m going to stay here,_ Harry thought. _I don’t care if it sweeps me away too. I can’t… I can’t leave now. Not now. Not like this._

Draco was examining him very closely. “Shouldn’t you be leaving about now, then?”

“Not going to leave,” Harry said. The world around them was getting very white.

“Potter…”

The whiteness had nearly caught him, now. Harry closed his eyes, ready to welcome it in…

And then a voice whispered in his ear, “Harry, _I’ll come with you…_ ”

And Harry woke up.

 

As soon as Harry’s eyes opened, he sat up and looked across the room at Draco, who was also sitting up and looking across at him, eyes startled. Harry stood and crossed the room to land almost in Draco’s lap, where he immediately pulled him into a kiss.

“What,” came Ron’s voice from somewhere in the vicinity of his left.

“Um…” added Hermione.

“I did tell you so,” said Luna, and Harry had to pull back to laugh.

“So, it worked?” asked Hermione.

“Oh, it worked,” said Harry.

And they smiled at each other like lunatics as Ron begged for explanations that would not come for a long while.

 

“So you saw the memory with the Boggart,” Draco said as they stood together on a Hogwarts balcony, watching the sunset.

“Yeah, sorry about that.” Harry winced. “I didn’t tell any of the others, if it’s any consolation. But I felt like I had to try…”

“I’m glad you did.” Draco smiled, but it soon faded. “I… still can’t believe it was my father, all along.”

Hermione had found nothing in the hatemail, but plenty of evidence in Malfoy Manor (once pointed there by Harry) to prove that Lucius had poisoned his own son after all. Apparently, he had hoped the sympathy from his son’s coma and potential death would clear the family name, especially if the poisoning was blamed on their haters in the first place. Well, he had been half-right. Lucius was headed for Azkaban, and no one was sending Draco hatemail anymore. There was a plus side to everything.

“I guess I’m glad he’s going away, but… he’s still my father, you know?”

“I know,” said Harry.

“I’ve still got you?”

It was more of a question than anything, and Harry answered it that way. “You’ve still got me.”

And as they looked out into the sunset, Draco’s head came to rest on Harry’s shoulder.

“Still think you’re a bloody git sometimes, though.”

“Sentiment returned, Mr. Malfoy,” said Harry with a grin, and then they didn’t speak again until the sun went down.


End file.
